Dumb strum

OUR story about a young chap with an eccentric notion of how to learn the piano reminds Martin Black of his failed attempt to master the guitar in his youth. He recalls complaining to his mother that learning the stringed instrument was painful on the fingertips. Mum suggested he wear gloves while playing. “I thought that was daft,” Martin recalls, “So I sarcastically told her I might as well wear mittens.” Mum, whose attention wasn’t entirely focused on her son, smiled vaguely and said: “Yes, dear. Excellent idea.”

Nose nothing

A FEW years ago Rachel Rawle from Pumpherston began dating a posh English bloke. A few weeks later they split up acrimoniously with Rachel saying to her busted beau: “Your nose is like one of those Highland cow-y things.” The busted beau was bamboozled. (Understandably.) “I was trying to say he was toffee-nosed,” Rachel explains. “But I was so flustered I couldn’t think of the correct words. I just kept seeing an image in my mind of the McCowan’s Highland Toffee cow.”

Literally loopy

ALBERT Uderzo, the French co-creator of comic book character Asterix the Gaul died recently, making Diary contributor John Mulholland rather sad. Though sadness turned to pedantry when he suddenly thought to himself: “Asterix ... the gall of some people who use that word instead of asterisk.”

Tactless talk

The teacher of acting student Gordon Roper recently told him he wasn’t doing very well in mime class. “I was speechless,” says Gordon.

Shoe-in for prize

RUMMAGING through boxes in the attic, Sheila Munro from Shawlands discovered an old diary she kept when she was eight-years-old. Flicking through the pages to see if there was any hint of genius in her younger self, she soon found definitive proof. “Learned to tie shoe-laces,” was the diary entry that filled her with pride and made her wonder why she’d never won a Nobel Prize for being a Smarty-pants. The next day’s entry took the swish out of her swagger. “Forgot how to tie shoelaces,” was written on the page.

Wooden woes

TWENTY years ago Steven Collins scratched his name and that of his girlfriend on a park tree. Now married, the couple returned to look at the tree recently and were disappointed to discover it gone. A park gardener informed them all the trees in that area had been chopped down a few years before, and put on a bonfire. “I guess that’s what Elvis meant by burning love,” sighs Steven.

Pedestrian parent

DAFT joke of the day. “What do you call a father without a car?” asks reader Terry Essex. The answer is, of course: “The walking dad.”